Where was Hawkeye?
by fezwearingjellybananas
Summary: *Spoilers for Cap 2* (but more the other Avengers) So, without spoiling anything, where was Hawkeye?


**Author's Note: Spoilers for Cap 2 I guess. Probably make more sense if you've seen it. Natasha does swear. But it's all right, none of it's written down and it's in Russian and Clint probably deserved it. Also reference to Clintasha because arrow necklace. Anyway, hope you enjoy it. **

**So, all in all**

**Where Was Hawkeye?**

* * *

"Clint, where are you? Fury's dead, SHIELD's compromised, Rodgers is a fugative, I'm with him, the Winter Soldier's on the loose, we need you."

- H -

"Clint Barton, I need your help, where are you?"

- H -

"Hawkeye, where are you?"

- H -

"Clint Barton you are in huge trouble. If you are not here in ten minutes, I'm kissing Steve."

- H -

Clint Barton, known as Hawkeye, sat on the chair, head on the table, groaing. Natasha was going to kill him. The messages played. Oh, he was so dead.

His phone rang again.

"Hello?"

"Clint Barton, where the hell are you?!"

"Oh, hi Tasha."

"We need you! HYDRA is in SHIELD! There are three helicarriers which are about to decimate the human population! We need you. Triskelton. Right now."

"Er, sorry Nat, I'm, er, out of, er, arrows."

"Out of arrows? How the-" She started swearing at him in Russian. "Out of-" she spluttered. "Out of arrows? How can you be out of arrows?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story."

- H -

_Seven days previously_

Hawkeye pulled up outside Stark Tower. Finally back from his mission in Europe. Classified of course. All he could say was that Thor had really messed London. He couldn't wait to see Natasha again, but she was busy doing something for Fury. So instead he was here. Stark had offered him somewhere to shoot and he couldn't deny he was interested in what the other Avengers had been doing since New York. He knew Stark had had an rather _interesting _Christmas to say the least. Banner hadn't shown up on any radars. Rodgers was working for SHIELD. Well, he'd found out his girlfriend and friend, Stark's father apparently, had set it up so he sort of trusted them. Felt he owed it to them. Clint had always wondered how much someone had wanted those initals to spell SHIELD. Made sense now. Named in honour of Rodgers, sort of. Thor wasn't on Earth. Only time he had been on Earth was after some aliens. Nat was being Nat. He'd given her an arrow necklace for her birthday. He had had to ask Hill for advice on jewellry. He didn't understand it at all. She seemed to like it though. She also probably knew Hill had chosen it. But she didn't say anything. That was nice.

Clint climbed out the car. He picked his bow and quiver out the back and strode in.

"Agent Barton, nice to finally meet you."

"Oh, er, hello, you must be Miss Potts."

"Please, call me Pepper, Agent Barton."

"It's Clint." He shook Pepper's hand.

"Tony's upstairs. Come on. I'll show you."

She led him upstairs, Clint admiring the architecture. Some of it looked rather climbable.

"Tony? You've got a visitor."

"Who Pep?" Stark emerged, grease across his face, a screwdriver sticking out his pocket and a hand pulser on. "Er, bad timing."

"I knew you were making a new suit."

"Oh good. So, I'm not going to suffer the full force of the Extremis or-"

"Oh, you're still dead. Clint's here."

"Clint. Oh, Hawkeye. Hi Hawkeye. Come on in. What can I do for you?"

"I'll see you later Tony."

"Bye Pep." She left.

"You said to drop in," Clint said.

"Yes I did. Bruce, it's all good, it's Clint."

Banner stuck his head out from behind a wall.

"Barton. Good to see you again."

"And you Doctor Banner."

"It's Bruce. If we're supposed to be a team we might as well be on first name basis."

"Yes, practise. Follow me," Tony said, leaping up and headinng towards a staircase at the bottom of the stairs. "Welcome to the Avengers Tower."

They were in a large, fairly empty, room. The plaster wasn't painted and there were tins of paint on the floor. There was a sort of balcony edging around the top, giving a view across the main floor. There was a corridor at the back.

"What do you think?" Stark asked.

"It's a bit empty." Honesty. That was the best part of a team. Clint had experience with teams. He'd worked with Natasha loads of times. Worked with Maria Hill too. And Director Fury. Even Phil Coulson. Clint couldn't help but blame himself for that. He shouldn't have been that easy to control.

"Yep." Stark seemed pleased with that. Was it supposed to be empty? "And we're going to decorate."

"Decorate. You want me to help decorate." Clint's face fell. Weapons, he could do. Infiltration, he could do. Interior decorating? Was Stark stark raving mad? Was he suffering from some sort of mental afflication?

"More make it suitable for everyone," Stark- Tony, Clint corrected himself- said. "Bruce and I were about to get started. Come on, we'll show you around."

"In here we've got a sort of training spot," Bruce said, pointing into the next room. It had a climbing wall, an archery range- yes!- and gym equipment. Rodgers-_ Steve_- must have had a hand in, or at least been in mind when, picking that. Somehow, he couldn't see St-Tony or Bruce using it that often. "Just white, thought it didn't matter too much seeing as people are in here to train, not relax."

"Through here we have bedrooms." Tony lead him back through the main floor. "Each member has their own room and there's a set of spares on the floor above incase we pick up anyone else. They're not decorated yet, just beds, but we thought we have little symbols on the door or something like, Steve could have his shield, I could have the Arc Reactor, Bruce could have, I don't know, maybe a gamma warning or something? Thor could have his hammer, you could have, er, maybe a sight or something from your bow? And Black Widow always has that belt, doesn't she, with the sort of hourglass thing. Then we were going to make Coulson an honorary room, he could have a SHIELD badge or something." Clint just nodded, not sure how to respond. "Then we can just give everyone paint or something."

"Oh, and through here," Bruce said, once again heading back to the main room before heading off, "is a lab. Look at it. Look at all the science."

"So much science," Tony agreed.

"Is that a titration?" Clint asked.

"Yeah. Just checking the concentration of some sodium hydroxide. You know about science?"

"A little. I did chemistry as one of my main subjects at school."

"Clint Barton, welcome to the science brotherhood," Tony said, holding out his hand. Clint shook it. "Now, come on, we have work to do."

The three of them headed back to the large room.

"Design Clint, we need style. Something cool, something modernist, but not too busy."

"We could always come up with a logo. Just an A or something. Paint that on the wall."

"And this is why we needed advice," Bruce said. "Otherwise it was a ask Pepper for help job."

"And you didn't want to ask for help."

"Not really," Tony said. "Although, I did rather like her idea of a cream instead of white."

"I think blue," Bruce said. "For the A. Blue seems like a nice colour."

"Not green?" Clint raised his eyebrows, smiling. Bruce shuddered.

"No. Not green."

"What do you know, the spy has a sense of humour," Tony said. "Hop to it then everyone, we have a room to paint."

- H -

They emerged several hours later, dripping head to toe with paint. Tony had managed to fix the mechanical assistants that they had salvaged from the wreakage of his house and they had "helped" too, but more of the paint did seem to end up on the three Avengers rather than the walls. They were all laughing. Pepper raised an eyebrow as they wqlked through the rest of Stark Tower to find a shower and some clean clothes, but she didn't say anything. The room was now cream, with an A on, not dissimilar to the one which had been left on the side of Stark Tower after New York.

Pepper hardly saw them after that. She supposed it was good for them to bond if they were going to be a team. All they needed now was for the others to turn up.

- H -

Clint stayed at the tower that night. Tony had built rooms, they were supposed to be used and his place was back at SHIELD and he knew if he went back his compulsory week off after a mission would turn into paperwork. It always did. Well, paperwork, Nat and training, but she was on a mission and he could train here. Besides, he'd agreed to help decorate and it was faster. And- well, and he seemed to have made some friends. Which didn't happen everyday.

They moved onto the bedrooms the next day. It was fairly easy to do their own. They'd put Coulson's honorary room next to Steve's. They managed to do that one. A photo of Coulson Tony had managed to get from, probably by illegally hacking, SHIELD. Light blue, the same colour as the A in the other room. It was a nice contrast from the black and grey of SHIELD. They gave up after that and ran for Pepper. She was just so much better at it than them. She sketched the SHIELD logo on the wall and painted it a washed out blue, so you could see it, but it was the same colour as the room. Pepper did the logos on the door too. She was just better. Took then a while to admit it. But they did.

Decorating takes longer than it looks. It took them six days to finish everything and Clint realised he'd never had such good friends, save Nat. There was one thing left.

Science.

- H -

"See, physics says that if you always take this much lift, your arrows will always fly straight," Tony said, standing by a large board full of numbers. Clint was sitting on a stool while Tony and Bruce worked it out.

"There's no physics to it," Clint insisted. "It's about the feel of the bow, how the arrow sits, the wind, but not maths. It just feels right."

"You must do some maths," Bruce said.

"It take a millisecond. There's no working stuff out. Here look." Clint went over to the range. He picked up his bow and an arrow. "Cock fletching up. That's the different coloured one that's at right angles to the nock. The nock is the bit on the end. The pointy bit's the pile. The long stick is the shaft. Three parts to a simple recurve. Riser, that's the bit you hold, the limbs and the string. This extra bit is the sight, but you don't always have one of those. Most people do. You can also have stabilisers which make sure the bow falls forwards. Bit impratical for what I use it for though. Nock the arrow onto the string. Hold it in your hand. We're inside so three fingers below. If you start at 20 yards it'll be easier. Stand shoulder's width apart, side on. Penguins don't do archery. Lift the bow up as you draw back. Draw so your thumb is resting under your chin, nock in the corner of your mouth. Line you where you want the arrow to go and loose." Clint let go of the string and the arrow stuck gold. "Could be better."

"In what terms could that be better?" Tony asked.

"It's only just a ten, it should be dead centre from this distance." He tossed the bow to Tony. "Your go."

"I can't fire-"

"Shoot. Fire's a swear word in archery. You do not fire a bow. You shoot it. No gunpowder, no explosions. Shoot."

"All right. I can't shoot a bow."

"Have you ever tried?"

"No."

"Then how do you know?"

Clint spent the rest of the day teaching Tony and Bruce how to shoot.

- H -

The following day Tony decided to show them how he built the Iron Man suits. Bruce was pretty nifty with a screwdriver. They finished the one Tony had already started, still powered by an Arc Reactor, but this time directly in the suit, not in Tony. Then they moved onto another project. There was a Tutari weapon that seemed to have been missed by SHIELD in the tower. Tony and Bruce had been doing a little experimentation. They thought if they could make a smaller version it would be easier for Natasha to use than a gun which would run out of bullets. Clint couldn't deny it made sense, but he did wonder how they would power it without the Tesseract and he wondered how Steve would take it considering it worked like a HYDRA weapon.

- H -

Bruce couldn't really teach them about being Hulk, but he did know about meditation. It was just after one of his meditation sessions that Clint finally looked at his phone.

_Thirty missed calls from Nat_

"What?"

"What's up?" Tony asked. Clint gulped before hitting play on the messages. His head slowly sank down until it hit the table as he listened. Natasha seemed to gradually get crosser and crosser with him. By the last message she seemed to just be swearing at him in Russian. The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Clint Barton, where the hell are you?"

- H -

"So, you see, I can't really help because I don't have any arrows because I taught Bruce and Tony how to shoot and Fury hasn't ordered in the next shipment yet."

"You spent the last week decorating and mucking about."

"It is my week off Nat. I'm off until tomorrow."

"There won't be a tomorrow unless you get your arse here right now."

"But I'm in New York, you're in DC. I won't get there in time."

"Get Stark to give you a lift then! I don't care how you get here just sodding well get here!"

She hung up.

"Dude, you are so dead," Tony said.

"I gathered. Could I have a lift to DC?"

"DC here we come. You coming Bruce?"

"And how is your suit going to carry two people?"

"I'll call Rhodey."

- H -

They touched down less than an hour after Natasha had hung up.

"Erm, now what?" Tony asked as the hellicarriers fell out of the sky.

"Looks like they didn't need us after all," Bruce said.

"Steve's over there," Clint pointed. "I guess if we get him to a hospital and rescue his shield from underwater we might be forgiven. Well, mostly me."

"I'll dive. My suit'll mean I can breathe still."

"And I'll make sure you don't kill yourself." Tony and Rhodey headed over to the water's edge.

"Guess that leaves us to get Cap here to a hospital," Bruce said to Clint. "One arm each?"

"One arm each." They lifted him up. "Flipping heck he's heavier than he looks."

- H -

Natasha slapped him. Hard. Then again. And again.

"You think that was a decent excuse for not answering your phone?"

"Nat, it was an accident. How many times have you not answered your phone when I tried to call you? Budapest ring any bells?"

"That was different. That wasn't within SHIELD. I thought you were HYDRA and that's why you weren't helping!"

"Sorry Nat. On the other hand, we painted your bedroom."

"You are dead Barton."

"Please don't kill me Nat."

"I thought Fury was dead!" She pointed at the empty grave as if to make her point.

"But he's technically alive, so it's all good. And we rescued Steve's shield and got him to a hospital, so I did help a little. Is that other guy an Avenger too now? Do we have to do more painting? I've no longer got a job so there's time." He smiled. She gave him a look. "Nat, you're being scary. Nat, Death would run away from a look like that. Nat please stop. Nat. Nat. Nat. I'll bake cakes?"

"You are dead Barton."

"Bruce, Tony, save me!" He ran off, arms waving above his head.

"So, that's your boyfriend?" Sam asked.

"Sort of I guess," Natasha said.

"Where's Hawkeye going?" Steve asked.

"He's scared of me."

"Right. Is that Stark over there?"

"Yeah."

"I take it he fished out my shield."

"Him and Rhodes."

"So, what have they been doing?"

"Apparently decorating us bedrooms in the Avengers Tower. They've offered to paint you one too Sam."

"Sweet! I guess that makes me a kind of Avenger?"

"Yeah. Cap, I've got that thing you asked for." She handed over Bucky's file.

"What's she doing?" Tony asked, just out of earshot from the other three.

"Don't know," Clint said. "She's being scary. No, wait, did she just kiss him? She did, she kissed him! Natasha Romanov stop kissing Captain America!"

"She did it properly earlier," Steve said. "As a distraction."

"You can't kiss Steve Nat. He's way too old for you. He's ninety four. It was bad enough when you were kissing Phil. Do you have to do this every time I make you cross?"

"Yes."

"I said sorry."

"Just head to kitchen Bird Brain." Clint grinned. She called him Bird Brain. That normally meant she wasn't quite so cross any more.

The other watched them leave.

"So Stark, about these bedroom? My flat's kind of covered in Fury's blood."

"Cap, call me Tony."


End file.
